International Journal for Social Studies

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Abstract

Science education is believed to be a vital tool for individual and societal development at large. The persistent low levels of students’ achievement in sciences at the various public examinations in Nigeria have continued to draw the attention of major stakeholders in education. This study examined academic achievement of Senior Secondary School students in science subjects, the relationship between the three subjects; Biology, Chemistry and Physics and gender difference in students’ achievement were examined. Ex-post facto design of descriptive research was adopted for the study. A proforma was used to collect data from a sample of three hundred (378) students, selected using stratified random sampling procedure from the Science secondary schools in Kano state Nigeria. The data collected were the students’ performances in in three science achievement tests. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics,Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) and Independent-Sample t-test. Overall results showed that students performed above average (M=55.10, SD=14.256, 55.10%) and a significant correlation exists between students achievement in the three key science subject r (376) =0.763, r (376) = 0.781, r (376) =0.714. Similarly, gender difference exists in science achievement.The implication of this finding is that, though students’ sciences achievements are satisfactory and generally encouraging, there are distinguishing differences in the cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills of students with respect to gender. It is recommended among others that, that teachers should encourage students to manage their own learning, engage in co-operative tasks in order to improve their academic achievement in sciences and minimise gender disparity in students’ achievement.